Hey! Where’s Dick?

Hey, that reminds me – what the heck ever became of Dick Cheney? You remember him, don’cha? Sure ya do! A couple of months ago he was storming all over this once-great nation – the same nation he helped to destroy – in a nitroglycerin-addled frenzy, warning his brain-dead, clueless constituency what a danger the Obama administration posed for this troubled country. Three months ago you couldn’t shut the hideous, gnarled old freak up. His silence since the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last April is quite deafening. What happened to him?

I’ll tell you what happened to him: At this very moment, our esteemed, former vice-president is in some “undisclosed location”, meeting with a team of the cleverest lawyers stolen tax dollars can buy. The gazillion dollar hammer is within months of crashing down on the spiteful old bugger with a vengeance he doesn’t dare contemplate (bad heart, you know). Very soon the executives of BP will be standing before a court of justice. When that day arrives – OH, BROTHER! – they’re gonna spill their miserable guts as to what REALLY went down in those secret meetings between the Bush Cabal and the oil industry honchos in the early months of that disgusting administration. It ain’t gonna be pretty, boys and girls. Not pretty at all. This is gonna get really ugly; count on it.

Dick Cheney’s days as a “beloved elder statesman” are seriously numbered. Very soon it will become apparent to damned near everybody (Tea Partiers excluded of course) what a hideous, dreadful mistake it was to send these people to Washington ten years ago. Take that to the bank.

I have a confession to make: I miss Dick Cheney. I miss him and his disgusting daughter Liz pounding the talk show circuit, waxing idiotic on the subject of the evil socialist in the White House. Be honest; they were kind of fun to watch, weren’t they? They always reminded me of two circus wagons stuffed with clowns on a main highway that had crashed in to each other. You just couldn’t take your eyes off them. Then came the BP disaster. Liz lowered her profileand Sickie Dick all but disappeared! I’m sure that’s all a big coincidence, though.

We know, beyond any doubt, that the mechanism – the so-called “Blow-Out Detector” – might very well have prevented this disaster. (Come to think about it, “disaster” is too mild a term. This is a manmade catastrophe beyond any in all recorded human history.) The above-mentioned device was deemed too expensive (five-hundred-thousand “big ones”) and BP was allowed to proceed without installing it. When Bill Clinton was in the White House, the Blow-Out Detector was mandatory. When Cheney became president (No, that wasn’t a typo) it became optional. Wasn’t deregulation a neat idea?

Very soon, probably within two years, we will have in our hands the minutes of the meetings Cheney conducted in secret with the captains of the oil industry – if they haven’t been destroyed. At the very least we will have the testimony of the British Petroleum executives who were present at those meetings. I don’t mean to emulate Joe Barton, but I will offer a defense of British Petroleum (however mild): As far as I can tell, they broke no law. Don’t forget the uncomfortable fact that they were only taking advantage of the rules – or lack thereof.

It must be an awful thing to be Dick Cheney these days. To tell you the truth, I’m beginning to feel a bit sorry for the despicable old bastard. This is his Katrina. One cannot even blame Georgie Boy for this mess. The kindest thing I can say about George W. Bush is the fact that the guy was so mind-numbingly stupid, he was probably unaware of ninety percent of what was going on beneath him. Bush was a figurehead. It was only in the waning days of his term that he began to show a little presidential moxie – like when he refused Cheney’s request that Scooter Libby be granted a pardon. But by then it was too little, too late. Bush will regret – to his dying day, his decision to have Richard Bruce Cheney nominated as his running mate. I am as sure of that as I am my own name. Do you remember how Cheney wormed his way onto the ticket?

In the Spring of 2000, when it appeared certain that Junior had the nomination locked up, George The Elder knew that his half-witted kid could not possibly win based on any intellectual merit, so he picked the Dickster to head a committee to find a suitable person to run with him – someone with “gravitas”. That was the word of the hour. After only a few days, Cheney came back with the name of the perfect man for the job – DICK CHENEY! On March 10, 2007 – on this very site – I conjured-up for posterity’s sake the dialogue that must have taken place:

CHENEY: George! I have found your ideal running mate!

BUSH: Great! Who is it, Dick?

CHENEY: You’re not gonna believe it – IT’S ME!!!

BUSH: Whooa! What’re the odds??

The very fact that our former president fell for this scam is proof of what I’ve been saying saying since the minute he announced his candidacy almost eleven years years ago: He was (and I’m being mercifully generous here) clueless. And to think that for eight long years he was commander-in-chief. Incredible.

This morning I was looking at some video footage of Joe Biden on the morning news. Say what you might about the guy, he’s such a breath of fresh air – good humored, amiable, and thoroughly likable – such a welcome change from Dastardly Dick. You can’t help but love Biden. At the moment there is talk along the Washington cocktail circuit about the possibility of dumping him from the ticket in 2012. That would be a grave blunder. He may shoot from the lip every once in a while – but he’s no Dick Cheney! He’s Joe Biden and – dammit – they’d damn well better keep him!

One can only imagine the panic that Dick Cheney is feeling. I know from personal experience the queasy feeling that overcomes the senses when one is certain that they’re about to get busted. The sad thing is that he probably did nothing illegal when he loosened the rules that allowed BP to drill for oil in the Gulf minus the most basic of precautions. One of the many sick perks of being a member of the ruling class is that it allows you to change the rules to suit your own evil purposes – consequences be damned and screw the people. What will certainly be revealed when they do go to trial will be still more tangible evidence of that administration’s corruption.

Whether or not Twisted Dick crossed the barriers of legality in this instance remains to be seen. Wouldn’t that be great if he did, though? I’d love to see him hauled off to Leavenworth in the back of an Ox cart, manacled from head to toe. Oh, please, fate! That would be a dream come true!

It was announced late last night that Cheney was rushed to the hospital. Seriously, I wish him well. But I have to ask; are the ramifications of what is presently happening in the Gulf of Mexico starting to affect him?

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LA Progressive, its publisher, editor or any of its other contributors.

About Tom Degan

Tom Degan is a fifty-four-year old video artist who in 2006 became so thoroughly disgusted at the state of America's national political dialogue, he decided to take time off to become a freaking civics teacher. He was born in Goshen, NY in 1958 and, after living all over the United States and Canada, moved back there in 1992. He is a high school dropout who in 1977 received an equivalency diploma (HEY, IT'S LEGAL!) He attended SUNY in Middletown, NY and in 1986 studied journalism at the New School in New York City. He is the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and has worked as a truck driver, a radio DJ, and a metal worker... OK, he didn't ACTUALLY receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but he DID get some kind of ribbon of sorts when he was in the Cub Scouts. He is the inventor of Cheez Whiz and lives off the royalties on the sales of that fine product. He loves children and little baby duckies. FULL DISCLOSURE: He didn't really invent Cheez Whiz. His address is: 2590 Rte 17M (PO BOX 611) Goshen, NY 10924 (845) 294-5714

Please give up writing and return to the media gig, which required a lot less words, I am sure you were good at that task. It seems when you write, you use words rather unsuited to you. If I may, I call your type of writing “vile humor” so please do not be such a vogelkopf. have a happy 4th and thank a veteran if you can.

Progressive Issues

Rosemary Joyce: Archaeology has a checkered history of exploitation by totalitarian regimes. Treating the question of what materials from the past should be preserved, studied, and thus valorized, as politically neutral is part of the reason for that history.